Changing a contact owner to he previous value

Smart CRM & Sales Hub CRM
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1

I want to set up a workflow that will enroll contacts assigned to a specific user.

It must then revert the contact owner to the previous value.

Example: A contacts owner changes to mary and the previous contact owner was Matt. I want the owner to be reverted to Matt

2

Hi @MNezar,

This is not possible without custom code, as far as I know. There is no such option in the UI of the workflow editor.

If you want to reverse values in bulk, this is currently the best option: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/Tips-Tricks-Best-Practices/Reverting-Bulk-Property-Changes-by-Importing-Historical-Property/m-p/332929

If this is an ongoing process, can you please explain in more detail why you need this? It feels like there is a better way to solve this, e.g. through multiple owner fields.

Best regards

3

Hi @MNezar,

As @karstenkoehler mentioned, not really possible out of the box.
I’m not sure where this actually comes into play in the real world, but if you wanted to use a workflow to do this on an ongoing basis (or once I guess), you could create an additional property to note the existing/previous owner, and then copy back from that value.
So in short, the workflow would copy the existing value to the new property you created. Then it would change the main property owner to the new owner. You’d still have a reference to the previous owner in your new property you created. You could then immediately copy that value back over to the main property owner. There could be delays in between or you could even use multiple workflows to make this happen.
Again, I’m not sure why you’d do this, but in theory that would work.

Josh

4

And to add a bit to Josh’s idea, that new property would have to be of a “user” type (read more here).

5

Thanks Josh, it sounds like a good plan

6

Hi MNezar,

This is a smart use case, but there’s an important limitation to be aware of.

HubSpot workflows cannot directly revert a property to its “previous value.” While property history is visible on the record, workflows cannot dynamically reference that historical value in an action.

So in your example:

  • Contact Owner changes → Mary
  • Previous owner was → Matt

There is no native workflow action that says “reset Contact Owner to its previous value.”

Why It Doesn’t Work Natively

Workflows can:

  • Trigger when Contact Owner changes
  • Trigger when Contact Owner equals Mary
  • Set Contact Owner to a specific user
  • Copy values from one property to another

But they cannot access the historical “before this change” value automatically.

But this can be solved only if you store the previous owner before it changes.

Recommended Approach

You would need:

  1. A custom property (e.g., Previous Contact Owner)
  2. A workflow that copies the current Contact Owner into that property before any reassignment happens

However, here’s the key nuance:

If the reassignment to Mary happens manually or unexpectedly, you cannot reliably capture the “previous owner” at the moment of change using workflows alone.

Because by the time a “Contact Owner is Mary” trigger fires, the value has already changed, and the previous value is no longer accessible in workflow logic.

This setup works if:

  • The owner change is controlled by another workflow you manage
  • Or the reassignment logic is automated and predictable

In that case, you can:

  1. Copy Contact Owner → Previous Contact Owner
  2. Then update Contact Owner
  3. And later revert if needed

It Doesn’t Work If:

  • Users manually change the owner
  • Or the change happens outside controlled automation

Then, HubSpot alone cannot automatically revert to the prior owner without custom code (Operations Hub Pro custom-coded workflow action or API-based solution).

Here’s a Strategic Consideration

If the goal is to prevent assignment to a specific user (e.g., Mary), it’s usually better to:

  • Adjust the routing workflow
  • Modify permissions
  • Or remove that user from the round-robin logic

Fixing the root assignment logic is cleaner than reversing ownership after the fact.